1. Technical Field
The technical field relates to an iron for ironing out wrinkles from clothes or the like.
2. Description of the Background Art
The soleplate of conventional irons of the above type has a pointed tip. With such an iron, ironing can be performed in the following manner: run the iron over clothes to press and smooth out the clothes in the ironing direction, thereby ironing out the wrinkles thereof. Also, such an iron facilitates delicate ironing work around buttons of the clothes. Since ironing work is performed using limited space on an ironing board, the iron is repeatedly moved forward and backward over the clothes in a reciprocating manner, and also, the form of the clothes is adjusted during the ironing work. Generally speaking, the rear portion of the soleplate of an iron does not have a pointed shape. Accordingly, while the iron is being moved backward, pressing force is not applied to the iron and the rear portion of the soleplate is slightly raised from the clothes. In this manner, an erroneous operation of the iron, which causes creases to be formed on the clothes, can be prevented.
However, during ironing, such erroneous operation is often performed since wrinkles of the clothes can be efficiently ironed out by moving the iron in a reciprocating manner. Creases formed by ironing are hard to remove. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 10, it is conceived that a rear end portion 102 of a soleplate 101 is formed to have a similar pointed shape to that of a tip portion 103 (see, e.g., Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2009-28385 (hereinafter, referred to as Patent Document 1)).
The rear end portion 102 of the soleplate 101 of the iron described in Patent Document 1 is formed to have a pointed shape for the purpose of preventing creases from being formed when the iron is moved backward. However, a handle body 104 overhangs the pointed rear end portion 102. For this reason, there is a problem that while the iron is being moved backward over clothes, a part of the clothes near the pointed rear end portion 102 cannot be seen.
In general, ironing work includes an action to move an iron over clothes to iron out wrinkles thereof and an action to adjust the form of the clothes. Ironing is performed by repeating these actions to iron out the wrinkles and adjust the form of the clothes. In the case of a cordless iron described in Patent Document 1, the iron is placed on a stand during a break in use of the iron, while the form of the clothes is adjusted.
When the iron is placed on the stand, power is supplied to a heating element of the iron. A connection terminal 105 for the power supply is provided near and above the rear end portion 102 of the soleplate 101. Accordingly, for the rear end portion 102 of the soleplate 101, it is difficult to obtain the same level of visibility as that of the tip portion 103. While the iron is being moved backward, sight of an area neighboring and encompassing the pointed rear end portion 102 is blocked by the handle body 104, and accordingly, the area neighboring and encompassing the pointed rear end portion 102 cannot be viewed. Thus, only forming the rear end portion 102 of the soleplate 101 into a pointed shape does not solve the problem that when the iron is moved backward, creases are formed due to an erroneous operation of the iron.